If you're thinking of buying a laptop that comes with win7, be forewarned....just about every program you're now using will have to be "upgraded" or...worse yet...you'll have to buy new ones. I just shelled out $258 just for wordperfect. My voice dictation software won't run in w7...neither will PowerDesk, Paradox, Word 97, Omnipage Pro, Corel PaintShop, or Roxio Creator...among others.

On the other hand, it would run fine in a VM. As for me, i've upgraded from XP to windows 7 on all my computers with absolutely no software problems.(only one touchpad driver issue but that was fixed now)

If you absolutely need to use legacy software, get or upgrade to Win7 Pro or Ultimate and download/install windows xp mode. This will give you a virtual XP machine that you can run those programs from. They've done a good job integrating for seamless running of applications, so you can run programs from xp mode in a normal application window rather than inside the vm window.

Also, Word '97!? Not only are you going to run into compatibility problems opening newer documents, but you're opening yourself to numerous vulnerabilities, as Office 97 hasn't received maintenance updates in years. This will soon be the case for Office 03 as well, so you're best off using either 07 or 2010. You can get the Product Key Card version of Office Home & Student 2010 for $99 at most retailers. (I know this is for certain the case at Staples where I work, some retailers may still have it at $119).